NASA looks at plan to blot out Sun/HIV infection rate rises to epidemic levels in Sydney gay community

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http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/nasa-looks-at-plan-to-blot-out-sun/2006/11/19/1163871272174.html

 

NASA looks at plan to blot out Sun

 

 

THE idea seems like something out of a Superman comic: a machine or missile shoots tonnes of particles into the atmosphere that would block the Sun's rays, cool down the overheated Earth, and reverse global warming.

But at the weekend scientists gathered in a closed session organised by NASA and Stanford University to discuss researching such a strategy. The idea is called geo-engineering: using technology to tinker with the Earth's delicate climate balance.

Ken Caldeira, a climate scientist at the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology at Stanford University, said his modelling showed the idea worked. "We found that if you blocked 20 per cent of the sunlight over the Arctic Ocean it would be enough to restore sea ice," he said.

The Boston Globe

HIV infection rate rises to epidemic levels in gay community

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2006/11/25/1164341446659.html

By Catharine MunroNovember 26, 2006

SYDNEY'S gay community has an infection rate of HIV that is similar to that of countries in Africa.

As organisations prepare to mark the 25th anniversary of recognising human immunodeficiency virus, they warned that infection rates were on a steady increase in Australia.

Garrett Prestage, a lecturer at the National Centre in HIV Epidemiology and Clinical Research, said that, in the inner-city area, 10 to 18 per cent of the gay population was HIV infected.

In Lesotho in Africa, the rate was 20 per cent last year, UN figures show.

Last year in NSW, 954 people were diagnosed with HIV and nearly three-quarters of them caught the disease through homosexual contact. By comparison only 109 people in NSW were reported to have had the mumps last year.

"For gay men, HIV is a massive epidemic," Dr Prestage said. "If you are a gay man living in central Sydney, you are living with rates of HIV that are equivalent to sub-Saharan Africa."

Rob Sutherland, 26, who at 19 was infected during his first sexual encounter with a man, said he did not know whether or not he was living with a fatal disease because treatments had advanced so much.

So uncertain is the prognosis for the disease that some experts call it a chronic, manageable illness.

"They don't know how long people are living. They are just living and living," Mr Sutherland said.

This year nearly 3 million people have died of AIDS, the largest annual figure yet.

UN figures show that southern Africa is the centre of the HIV epidemic; 32 per cent of people with HIV globally live in the region and 34 per cent of AIDS deaths globally occur there.

Meanwhile, the AIDS Council of NSW, the Bobby Goldsmith Foundation and People Living with HIV/AIDS will hold their first Walk for AIDS event in Sydney's Royal Botanic Gardens at 10am today.